


To Mend What Was Shattered

by Immicolia



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Coping with Grief, Coping with trauma, Gen, Jin might be a bitter disaster, Lightning is dead too, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Speculation, Windy's Origin is dead, Windy's not much better off, things end okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 10:22:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immicolia/pseuds/Immicolia
Summary: The connection between an Ignis without an Origin and an Origin without an Ignis.Or: Jin and Windy basically adopt each other.





	To Mend What Was Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> So the latest batch of reveals have me living in fear that Lightning is not going to be allowed to live because I see no way he can be brought back from any this. Which makes me sad because I adore the trashbag. And my way of dealing with things that make me sad is by writing equally sad nonsense. And since I'm equally worried about the Wind Kid being dead too, I came up with this to make me feel marginally better about the very real possibility of those two horrible things.

From Windy's perspective the very idea of this little get together is morbid. The surviving Lost Children and the surviving Ignises, all face to face for the first time. It seems pointless. Painful. And he says as much when Ai asks him if he's coming.

"What is this even going to accomplish?" He scowls up at Ai from where he is hunched against a canyon wall and drags a finger through the dirt.

"Well, everyone wanted to meet." Ai pauses to think and chuckles. "Not Yusaku so much, but he's warming to the idea. And everyone else is interested so we'll all get together and--"

"And I'll just be a reminder of the one that didn't make it."

Ai flinches as if he's been struck and shuffles from one foot to the other. Grasping for something to say in the face of such blunt fatalism. "Windy--"

"It's true." He lowers his head and studies the twisting set of lines he's drawn in the dirt next to him before sweeping it all away. "There's no reason for me to go. I'll just bring everything down."

Ai doesn't give up easily. He prods and cajoles but ultimately it's futile. Windy refuses to budge. Something that isn't particularly unusual. Save for the odd appearance when his assistance was required for reconstruction, Windy hasn't strayed far from his own section of Cyberse. Taking shelter within the raging winds that howl between soaring cliff faces and doing whatever he can to avoid the others.

"Self-pitying wallowing" is what Flame called it the one time he came by, intent on dragging Windy out of his funk. "It's a tragedy, Windy. I understand that much but ultimately you weren't yourself. The only one to blame is Lightning."

It's not an incorrect statement. Not entirely. Lightning is somewhat to blame. Lightning is the one who tore away what Windy originally was and set a seed of madness and hatred in its place. And sometimes, as fanciful as it may be, he imagines what Lightning did as a scar. It's healing now that everything is over, with time and care his code has returned to almost what it was before. But there is still something dark there. Faint twists of something vicious, something fearful. The thing that Lightning made him into.

He knows if the others spent any amount of time around him, they'd likely see it too. Staying away is safer. Easier.

But he misses them all the same and the ghost of what could have been if he hadn't been so stupid, if he hadn't let Lightning close enough to dig in and _change_ him (not that he ever could have known), gnaws at him constantly. To the point when the day finally comes, when the others leave to reunite with their Origins (Partners) once more, he finds himself drifting out of Cyberse and into the network proper as well. His mind wavering back and forth on the wisdom of joining them.

Aoi Zaizen is at the gathering (despite the strangeness of her connection to it all) her duel disc empty save for a standard assistant AI. Ryoken Kogami's is even emptier than that. He could slip into either and join the group (although the idea of willingly climbing into _Revolver's_ duel disc is something every survival instinct he has rebels against) but the thought of being so close leaves him uneasy. Even if the other Ignises would welcome him back into the circle joyously and with open arms.

Maybe especially because of that.

Then he spots it. A stray duel disc nearby but mostly powered down and not within the tight little circle where the others are. He could slip into it and take a peek without anyone being the wiser.

Just a glimpse. It's all he wants. All he needs.

That is his intent as he jumps inside and powers it on.

 

* * *

 

Jin's head is all but pounding within five minutes of the gathering's start. Not that anyone is remotely unkind or callous to him, if anything they all treat him like spun glass or bone china. Delicate and fragile, ready to shatter at the slightest breath, and perhaps _that_ is part of why he retreats back towards the truck so quickly with an unsteady smile and a mumbled excuse that he can't even remember two seconds later.

Shoichi's own smile is sympathetic as Jin stumbles into the truck and slumps into the closest chair. "A little much, huh?" And all Jin can do is nod, hesitant to tell the whole truth.

It's not just being surrounded by other people and the way they oh-so-carefully talk and act in his presence that has him craving solitude. It's the strange hollow pit in his chest that he only becomes more and more aware of when he watches the others with their Ignises. A cold ache that leaves him struggling to breathe made even worse by the fact that he's certain Spectre knows. Spectre is frighteningly observant and aware, something that is only compounded by the fact that he briefly went through exactly what Jin is feeling right now. He knows the horrifying lack that comes with losing an Ignis.

But Spectre doesn't know what it's like to actually be the _reason_ your Ignis is dead (although not for lack of trying) and that pushes his cool-eyed sympathy into the realm of too much to take. Everything is too much and ultimately drives Jin to take what shelter he can inside the truck.

"Do you need some space?" Shoichi's second question (so careful, so concerned, just like everyone else) is enough to set his teeth on edge, but all the same Jin nods again. Because he does. Relieved when Shoichi nods and says, "I have to take those guys some food anyway. I'll just take my time coming back."

Jin hums in acknowledgement but otherwise says nothing as Shoichi steps out the door with a tray of food and drinks. Pulling his knees up to his chest, the position somewhat awkward in a computer chair but comfortingly familiar, as he lets his troubled thoughts chase one another around his mind.

He has lost a part of himself forever. Lightning may have been broken and twisted, but he and Jin were tied together and his deletion has wounded Jin just as much as any of his other actions did. A ragged scar across his soul that will never quite heal properly.

He's wondering if maybe, just maybe, he should give socializing another shot when a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision draws his attention and tugs him to his feet. There is a faint hint of something (an eye) on the screen of Shoichi's mostly forgotten duel disc and Jin's chest goes tight at the glimpse of green he catches until he realizes that it's the edge of the eye and not the iris that is that colour.

"You can come out if you want." His voice is hoarse and doesn't sound quite like his own as he lifts the duel disc from its spot on the shelf. The eye on the screen freezes, blinks once, then fades, a small green head emerging after a moment. Slow and cautious like a skittish animal.

There is a single breathless moment where they _stare_ at each other. Each afraid to move or speak even as a certain understanding cements itself between them.

They are both missing their other half.

It hadn't even occurred to him while he sat with the others that the Wind Ignis was missing. But in retrospect, as he stares at this small hesitant creature, the absence makes perfect sense. There is one of the Lost Children that will never have a chance, and the reason for that is currently blinking at him owlishly.

"Why are you here?" The question comes out sharper, more worried, than he'd like and the Wind Ignis sinks somewhat into the duel disc. His face half-submerged so just his eyes and the top of his head remain above the screen.

"Why aren't you with the rest of them?" is the response. A question deflected with a question and Jin makes a face.

"Because being around them was giving me a headache. Your turn."

The Ignis straightens a bit, emerges just enough for Jin to see the tops of his narrow shoulders, and shrugs. "I just wanted to try and watch them for a bit."

"So why not pick someplace closer?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Just because."

It's a childish answer, and even more blatant deflection than the previous answering a question with a question. Something that causes Jin to almost laugh. "You don't want to be here but you couldn't stay away either, huh?" Jin murmurs, and the Ignis flinches. Sinks a bit, almost fully retreating back into the duel disc, before he straightens up again and his eyes narrow.

"I guess."

"You're called Windy, right?"

A nod. "And you're Jin Kusanagi."

"Right." He slumps back into the computer chair, setting the duel disc down on the console in front of him. "So, Windy, do you want to go out there and sit with the others?"

"Not really."

Jin nods and a faint smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. "Neither do I."

 

* * *

 

Windy doesn't know what to make of Jin Kusanagi. Not really.

He only knows the rough outline of what happened after Lightning Changed him. There are certain things, certain memories and sensations, that are burned into him (like the purest of distain for humans and the night of the wreck, the way that car had crumpled and blossomed into a blaze and how it was all so _satisfying_ to a degree that makes him sick now) but the details are hazy. And the things after his loss to Soulburner -- and Soulburner's loss to Bowman in turn -- are simply lost. Things that he cannot know.

All he has is the vague, rambling, outline that Ai has told all of them. And the fact that Jin Kusanagi was the one to ultimately tear Lightning to useless digital shreds. A puppet taking vengeance upon the puppeteer.

That first afternoon, after the initial exchange of questions that neither of them gave a straight answer to and an agonizing minute of silence, Jin set the duel disc up on the truck's counter. A vantage point where he could see the others and at some point they noticed him as well. That fact made obvious by the way Ai had yelled, "Windy! You came!" and he left (all but fled) soon after. Secluding himself even more deeply within his section of Cyberse to avoid whatever needling questions might come when the others return.

The second time he leaves Cyberse Windy tells himself it's because Ai is being horribly annoying and he's running out of spots to avoid him in. At the very least that is the intent.

Why he flees back to the duel disc that is in close proximity to Jin Kusanagi is something that is a little harder to explain away. Maybe it's just because it's convenient. A place that Ai, or any of the other Ignises, will not be able to reach him. He can hole up there and be left entirely alone until he decides he wants to go back.

Even if he isn't really sure how much Jin can be trusted.

The disc isn't in the food truck that time and it takes Windy a moment to make sense of his surroundings. Ultimately deciding that it's likely a bedroom. Small and plain, without any real indication of the personality of its owner. But maybe that makes sense, given what he knows about Jin.

"You actually did come back."

The voice from the doorway startles him, almost drives him back into the duel disc entirely before he stops himself. His eyes narrowing slightly as he watches Jin step into the room and close the door behind him. "You were expecting me to?"

Jin shrugs and brings his thumb up to his mouth, his teeth worrying at the nail for an irritating amount of time before he finally speaks. "I don't know what I expected. Maybe I should ask you why you came back instead."

"Because," Windy snaps back with a shrug and Jin rolls his eyes.

"We're seriously doing this again?" The smile that twitches at the edge of Jin's lips is sardonic as he slumps to a sitting position on the floor, his back flush against the side of his bed. A place where he and Windy can almost be eye to eye given the duel disc's spot on the bedside table. "Just tell me already."

Windy huffs and gives his wrist a dismissive flick. It's not like there's a reason to hide his intentions. "Ai was bothering me and this seemed like a good place to get away from him. Unless his Origin comes here. Does he?"

"Nah. You're safe here. From that at least."

Windy doesn't want to ask what he wouldn't be safe from. Instead he simply sinks into the duel disc, intent on ignoring Jin's existence until he figures it's safe to return to Cyberse.

Things fall into a strange sort of pattern after that. Windy ducks into Jin's duel disc whenever he needs to get away. Sometimes Jin is there, sometimes he isn't, but either way there is something comforting about the space it allows him. It's a place where he doesn't have to worry about the others and their sympathetic expressions. There is just solitude.

And sometimes Jin.

They don't talk much. Not at first. Not until late one night (and Windy thought for sure Jin was asleep when he showed up) when Jin murmurs into the darkness, "Do you blame me? For what happened to Lightning?"

"Me personally?"

"Or all the Ignises, as far as you know at least."

"Why do you want to know?"

Windy can make out Jin's silhouette and the way his shoulders jerk in a vague shrug despite the fact that he's lying down. "Morbid curiosity? So?"

He hesitates for a moment. None of them have talked about Lightning since it all ended. Or at the very least they haven't talked about him while in Windy's presence. But... "Everything that happened to Lightning he brought on himself." There is no hesitation in the words. "If it hadn't been you it likely would have been Playmaker. Or Revolver."

"Would it? I think Playmaker at least would have tried to save him."

"I don't know." He scowls, grasping for some way to some way to pull the conversation away from Lightning. Not wanting to think about him at all. "What about you?"

"What _about_ me?"

"How do you feel about what I did to my Origin. Do you, any of you, blame me?"

"I don't talk to the others all that much but I don't think so. None of us knew each other before. The fact that he's-- gone doesn't really register. It's not like you guys where you all effectively grew up together."

Windy doesn't know how to respond to that, an awkward sort of silence falling between them and after a while he heads back to Cyberse. But those questions in the dark seemed to crack open a seal and more often than not when Windy ducks into the duel disc after that Jin is there.

(or maybe Windy simply starts heading there more often)

"I wish it was easier to get around in your world," Windy says one night and Jin's head tilts to the side, waiting for him to continue. "I-- kind of want to see his grave."

Jin doesn't ask who, likely doesn't have to, he simply nods and asks, "Do you know where it is?" in return.

"I did some checking. After. It's morbid but--"

"You needed to know," Jin finishes for him. "Do you want to go?"

Windy doesn't have a heart, he knows this. But all the same _something_ in his chest clenches and then twists a bit at the question. "It's kind of far. He was from a different city."

"Doesn't matter. I can figure something out. So do you want to go?"

Windy just nods, not quite trusting himself to speak.

They leave early in the morning a week later. Jin leaves a note for his brother (don't worry, I've got something to do, I'll be back by evening) and the walk to the train station is silent. It would be hard to talk anyway, with the duel disc tucked into a backpack. Although Jin did position it close to the top and left the zipper open enough for Windy to peek out if he wants.

Jin is breathing hard once they reach the platform at and first Windy thinks he's simply tired. That happens when humans exert themselves and Jin has always come off as frailer than most. Thin limbed and fragile due to his past, the decade spent all but motionless.

Except Jin's breathing only grows more ragged even after he sinks onto a nearby bench to wait, backpack hugged tightly to his chest, and Windy cranes his neck awkwardly to try and get a good look at Jin's face through the partially open zipper. His eyes narrowing in concern as it sinks in just how pale and stricken Jin looks.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine. I'll be fine." He's rocking a bit, his fingers curled white-knuckle tight where they're gripping the bag. "I'm just not used to being outside like this. Not alone."

Silence save for the agonized rasp of Jin's breathing and Windy twists and stretches his body as far out of the duel disc as he can manage. Just far enough for his hand to brush the side of one of Jin's fingers in a clumsy attempt at concern.

"You don't have to-- I mean. We can go back. I can always try to figure out another way. Or just--"

"Nah. I've already paid for the ticket." The smile Jin flashes is stiff. Forced. But there is still a degree of fierce determination there. "I can do this. I have to. I can't just-- hide forever."

"Isn't forcing things like this bad?" Windy can't even pretend to know much about how humans work, but Jin looks awful. Which he figures is proof enough that pushing isn't quite the best idea.

"Maybe. But I figure this is a good reason to. You need closure and I need this." He stands, movements stiff and unsteady, at the sight of the train drawing near. "If we put it off we'll think about it too much and just find more reasons not to. So--" The breath he lets out is an unsteady wheeze that is all but lost under the sound of the train pulling up to the station. "So let's do it."

There is nothing Windy can say in response to that.

 

* * *

 

Cemeteries are strange things. Silent and timeless and Jin feels like he's stepped into another world, another era, entirely as he walks between the rows of stones. The air is sharp with the faint hint of autumn and a memory swims up from the sucking mire of Jin's past. Being pulled from that hellish room in a state of shock, the first faint brush of fresh air against his skin he'd felt in what seemed like forever. It had been cool. Autumn crisp.

His breath catches in his throat and he staggers, everything (the rows of stones, flowers left behind by mourners, all of it) fading into a hazy blur for a moment as he struggles to maintain his composure. To breathe. Remember where he is. Find a thing, one thing to focus on. Something real to hold on to. To remind him where and when he is. The backpack heavy on his shoulder. Windy is in there.

Windy is why he's here.

One last shuddering gasp and things slowly come back into focus. The stones. He's looking for a name. The one of the six who didn't get a chance. He just has to keep walking. Keep checking, stone after stone, until--

"Found it." He shrugs the pack from his shoulders and draws it up to his chest. Awkwardly working the zipper open one handed and lifting the duel disc free. "Do you want me to leave you here for a minute? Give you some privacy?"

"What would I even do?" Windy looks up at him, so small and entirely lost. "I know I wanted to come but that's just because I know it's what humans do when someone dies. You make a grave, and you go there. But-- then what? What do you actually _do_?"

"I guess you don't have much of a concept of the afterlife, huh?"

"Not really." Windy's face scrunches slightly although it's hard to tell if it's in thought or simply annoyance at the question. "It's all binary. On or off. Here or gone. Existing or not. There's nothing else."

"So Lightning's--"

"Gone." The single word is so hollow, _final_ , that Jin shivers even as Windy continues. Pointing towards the grave in front of them, "What about him?"

Jin hesitates, on the cusp of pointing out just how _impossible_ that question is to answer before giving up with a shrug. "Nobody knows. Maybe it's just binary, maybe there's something more. Nobody- nobody has any idea. That's what being human is, I guess."

"Humans are kind of dumb."

"Yea. But it's all we got."

Windy says nothing. He simply sinks down into the duel disc until there is nothing but an eye filling the screen. "Do you think I should apologize to him? Just in case he still exists even though he's gone."

"If you want to. It probably wouldn't hurt."

A faint hum, and then Windy's head pokes out of the screen once more. "I think I do want some privacy. Just for a bit."

Jin nods and sets the duel disc on the ground. It probably looks strange but he can't quite bring himself to care. "I'll take a walk and be back in a couple minutes." He hesitates just long enough to see Windy nod then turns away, strolling deeper into the cemetery and forcing himself to feel nothing beyond the physical. The faint chill in the air and the way it burns against his lungs.

But no matter how hard he tries faint thoughts keep creeping into his head. Needling at him hard enough that his breath catches in his throat. For an Ignis it's all just binary. On or off. Lightning is _gone_.

It's his fault.

There's an apology on the tip of his tongue. Maybe like whatever Windy is doing right now except absolutely meaningless. There is no possibility of a ghost lingering to hear whatever useless words Jin might say. There is nothing. Just guilt.

But before he heads back to where he left Windy Jin still whispers, "I'm sorry," into the cool autumn air. Just in case.

Windy still looks tiny and baffled and in agony when Jin returns and his voice is gentle as he picks the duel disc up and asks, "Are you going to be okay?"

Windy's only response is to shrug and sink into the duel disc like he always does when trying to avoid something. But even as nothing but an eye there is still something agonized there. "I don't know."

"I don't know if I am either." Jin swallows, a strange tightness wrapping itself around his throat. "Which is even crazier when you think about it, given what Lightning was like, but--"

"He's part of you." Windy surfaces from within the duel disc once more. Slow and careful, just like the first time they met. "And you miss him."

"Yea."

Silence falls again. Strange and dizzying but not tense. Not like some of the other times. Instead Jin feels almost calm, like he'd managed to drain some of the poison festering inside him just with that simple admission and he carefully shrugs off his backpack once more. Holding it against his chest somewhat awkwardly as he moves to tuck the duel disc inside.

"Aqua connected with Aoi Zaizen, considers her a partner, even though she's not her Origin," Windy says suddenly. The words themselves carefully distant, but the meaning behind them clear and Jin pauses in mid motion. "So- maybe...."

"Maybe," Jin agrees, pulling the backpack to his chest a little bit tighter and inadvertently (that's what he tells himself, it's not intentional) moving the duel disc a little closer to his face as well. His head tilted towards Windy's, a motion that would allow their foreheads to press together if they were similar in size. "Ready to go home?"

Windy nods and vanishes into the duel disc and as he zips his backpack up Jin wonders if Windy is as aware as Jin is of the single word hanging unspoken in the air at the end of that question.

_Partner._


End file.
